THE WEDDING AND THE FINE PRINT

 In my 74 years I have not seen, or even heard of, a more tasteless, egotistical or pretentious wedding than the recent, 24X7 televised extravaganza of the Ambanis. It is not just about its cost, which is estimated to be anything between Rupees 1500 crores to 5000 crores, not including the cost to the government in facilitating a private function as if it was a state event. The ugliness, the perversity and its real portent lie elsewhere.

It lies in the in-your-face manner in which this money was expended, at a time when the average Indian has never been worse off economically, when inequality and unemployment have reached record heights, when 67% of the GST is paid by 50% of its poorest citizens, when the top 1% control 40% of the country's wealth, when 800 million people have to be provided free/subsidized foodgrains to survive. At a time like this it needs a specially insensitive and supremely contemptuous mindset to distribute invitation cards which cost lakhs of rupees each, to charter 100 private jets to bring in  guests from all over the globe, to take 500 guests on a pre-wedding cruise, to flaunt clothes and necklaces that are worth more than the GDP of many countries, to pay Rs. 80 crores (reportedly) to someone who is practically unknown in India, to dish out gifts that reportedly cost more than rupees one crore each. Marie Antoinette at least offered cake to the citizens when there was no bread, her Indian avatars offer only a soap-box serial (spread over eight months), every event of what should be a private affair playing out in full public glare. It is this which offends the sensibilities, not just the scale of expenditure. (Incidentally, I find something sick and diseased with this obsession for things foreign in our super rich, this compulsion to flaunt white skinned invitees, whether they be pop-stars, ex-Prime Ministers or corporate honchos. It's as if our billionaires have not fully "arrived" until they can rub shoulders with these imported types, even if the latter have to be paid for condescending to come. Why, for example, a Rihanna or a Justin Beiber when our country has such a rich galaxy of artistes and unparalleled cultural variety  of our own? )

Let us be clear about one thing: this wasn't just a wedding- it was a powerful political statement. It appears to me that Mr. Ambani was making two statements here through the glitz, the hype and the greenbacks. One, that no one should be in any doubt about his political clout and preeminence. (Incidentally, this vindicates what Rahul Gandhi has been saying all along about who the real powers behind the throne are). And Mr. Ambani's confidence is certainly justified- barring the South and the Left, every politician of any note- including those from the India Alliance and even the Congress itself - were in obsequious attendance, as were the Shankarcharyas who had boycotted the Ram Mandir inauguration, an indication that the Ambani empire holds sway over both the temporal and the spiritual! And the Prime Minister was there too, making contrite amends for accusing his host of sending tempo loads of black money to the Congress during the elections.                                                                                                                                                The second statement by Asia's richest man is that he doesn't give a tinker's curse for public opinion or his fellow Indians, that other 99% who have funded his riches, consumed his products and have made him what he is. He had demonstrated as much earlier when he built his 27 storey, Rs. 3000 crore mansion overlooking the slums of these Indians: the mansion is the symbolic finger he is showing them. And why should he bother, anyway?- he controls most of the media, the many anchors and editors had their snouts firmly in the multi-cuisine troughs he had prepared for them, and their studios obligingly read from the script prepared by them.                                                                                                                                                              But beneath this sickening display of naked power and wealth one can detect the parvenu type aspiration of the nouveau riche,  the real colonial mindset of the Indian uber rich: a desperate, almost paranoiac desire to be "accepted" by the glitterati and power brokers of the West, to be one of them, to rub shoulders with them. This is a trait Mr. Ambani shares with his political mentor: the  mentor does it by bear hugs and dropping of first names, our aspiring Midases do it by basking in the company of these invitees (what P. Sainath calls "Nero's guests"), even if it means your star performer performing with his jockeys showing and a Kim Kardashian doing a "gajni" walk next to Mamata Bannerjee plodding along in hawai chappals! It is THIS colonial mindset which is the bane of a progressing India,  which Mr. Modi should be working to eradicate, rather than on renaming Rajpath or revising the IPC and CrPC or redesigning the army's uniforms. But a doctor can hardly be expected to cure a patient if he has the same disease himself, can he? 

For me, the only ones who come out of this tamasha smelling good are the Gandhis, not one of whom attended the wedding functions, in spite of being invited personally. The absence of Rahul Gandhi particularly is not a sulking refusal or  arrogant behaviour; as Valsan Thampu has explained in a video, it is an affirmative action which demonstrates moral uprightness and political consistency. For this was not just a wedding, it was a political statement, a reiteration of the power and wealth of someone who controls the levers of government, and wanted it to be known not just in India but globally. It had to be answered in kind, which is what Rahul Gandhi has done. He has shown that, notwithstanding the capitulation by his peers in the Opposition camp, he at least has the courage and commitment to practise what he preaches- that this country is being handed over to the oligarchs, that the national wealth being cornered by the rich 10% needs to be equitably shared with the other 90% of the citizens of the country, that the nexus between politics and Big Capital has to be broken for the country to progress and to remain a true democracy. To that extent he has been true to his new persona and has done us proud.

Sadly, no other leader of the opposition alliance has shown a similar fortitude or moral integrity: they have all succumbed to the lure of power and wealth and performed the role of "baratis" (if not "labhartis") in full public glare. They could have wished Mr. Ambani personally and in private in the best Indian traditions, without associating themselves publicly with this circus. Instead, their cringing behaviour has exposed the fragility and lack of any genuine, value based adhesive to the India Alliance. It further shows the difficulty of formulating any Common Minimum Programme for the Alliance. This is a warning flag for Rahul Gandhi and one hopes he has taken note of this. For all their talk of socialist principles, concern for the common man, tears for the vulnerable sections- all this is just a facade, they are perfectly comfortable with the purveyors of vulgar affluence and riches; they are self serving opportunists whose only goal is to attain power. They will sup with the devil, if necessary, to attain this object. If they are opposing Mr. Modi it is not because they do not approve of his values and principles (or the lack of them), it is because they would rather be sitting on his throne. They cannot be trusted to stay the race and the Congress will, sooner or later, have to find a way reduce its dependence on them.

Many years ago, when I was a probationer on district training in Mandi (unfortunately, Kangana Ranaut was not around then), I used to go to the district Club almost every evening for a drink or a game of bridge. My Deputy Commissioner, the late CD Parsheera, was the President of the club but NEVER visited it. One day I asked him the reason for his staying away. I still remember his words, which have guided me throughout my career: " Avay, our job demands that we say NO more often than we say YES. And remember this- it's very difficult to say "no" to a person with whom you have had a drink the previous evening."

Do you now see the fine print in this wedding?

IF IT'S BOEING I AIN'T GOING !

 This week my thoughts have turned to a subject I'm not very familiar with- outer space. Actually, I'm in the middle of a fascinating book, THE WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD; it's about the first explorations of the South pole and Antarctica by Shackleton, Scott and Amundsen. The last quarter of the 19th century and the first of the 20th was the golden age of exploration and discoveries, on land and sea, whether it was Livingstone in Africa, Mallory on the Himalayas or Peary and Amundsen in the icy wastes of the North and South poles, respectively. Whether it was driven by imperialism or colonialism is beside the point- the fact is that it showed the human spirit and character at its best, and produced a race of indomitable men we sorely lack today.

Thanks to these explorers, there are no more worlds left to discover on this planet, except perhaps under the oceans and in outer space, and we appear to be making a royal mess of both. By the time we get to the ocean depths the bottom of the seas would be carpeted with micro plastics and the bodies of drowned migrants desperate to get to Europe. And as for outer space, it's destined to become  a huge cosmic landfill: it is estimated that there are more than 9000 tonnes of junk in the stratosphere, comprising of 25000 pieces more than 10 cms in size, 500000 between 1cm and 10 cms, and 100 million pieces of 1 cm. And that does not include the poop: in space, the shit doesn't hit the ceiling, it keeps floating for eternity, like the jumlas liberally dished out at elections.

The other thing of interest is that whereas the exploration of terra-firma was driven by human grit, muscle and sheer dedication, the exploration of space is powered more by technology and science. This is not to deny the undoubted courage and intrepid will of the astronauts - it takes nerves of steel to launch oneself into a dark, infinite emptiness with an uncertain umbilical cord- but simply to underline the distinction between human and technological prowess. The other difference is that whereas the earlier explorations were motivated by the passion and love of discovery, today's explorations are driven mainly by greed (deep sea mining for minerals) and/or geo-political hubris (why else would countries be scrabbling over rights on the dark side of the moon) and sheer stupidity (looking for another planet to colonise after we have destroyed Earth- wouldn't it be much easier to save our own planet?).

Which brings me to this fortnight's news and updates about space.

Mr. S Somanath, the head honcho of ISRO, is a softspoken man who lived in the shadows till he became a star after the success of the Chandrayan mission. And stars must make their presence felt, not necessarily by shedding light but by issuing statements. One such by Mr.Somnath last month was that he would like to send our Prime Minister on a space flight- that would, presumably, be the apogee of his career, not the landing of a man on the moon. Fair enough: each man has to set his own goals, even if they are self-goals. We shall also ignore the slightly seditious strand implicit in his desire to dispatch our Head of Government on a journey to nowhere, perhaps without a return ticket. But I learn that this invitation has got Mr. Modi really worried. For the timing of the invite was unfortunate; you see, the Indian origin American astronaut, Sunita Williams, has been floating around in space for the last three weeks with no indication when she can come back, due to a glitch in the Boeing Starliner which took her up. She is running out of patience, and more important, time. The current refrain in NASA is "If it's Boeing I ain't going!" but that is cold comfort for Sunita.

So  you see why the PM is uncomfortable? This is definitely not the best time to be considering a walk in the interstellar regions. Accepting Mr Somanath's offer, while it may enable Mr. Modi to revisit his self proclaimed celestial origins, a kind of "ghar wapasi" if you will, it may end up with him doing an Argentine Tango with Sunita Williams for eternity just outside the International Space Station. Not accepting it, conversely, would show lack of confidence in our space programmes, something which President Xi would no doubt note before making another dash for the dark side of Mars or Saturn or Moon, depending on the prevailing "rashi" at the time. There is, therefore, a possibility that Mr. Modi may transfer the invitation to Yogi Adityanath, thereby preserving his own skin and getting rid of a rival at one go - killing two birds with one asteroid, what?

Asteroid brings me to Mr. Somanath's next Nostradamus type statement- that a huge asteroid is likely to hit Earth next year, if it does then all life on the planet would be exterminated, and therefore we should prepare for extinction. I understand that bit about extinction: after all, there have already been six mass extinctions, the last being that of the dinosaurs. I was hoping the next would be that of the "bhakts" but Mr. Somnath says it will be all of us and who am I to quarrel with a man who can land a Rover on a postage stamp a million miles away? But I do have a question for him- how does one "prepare" for extinction?

Preparing for death I can understand- ensuring that one has made all the nominations, executed a will, divided one's properties among all the slobbering descendents and an impatient Mrs. Sitharaman, reminded the wife of where all the black money has been kept, have one last lingering look at that framed photo of Sunny Leone, return the Aam Aadmi cap to Mr. Kejriwal, and so on. You get the drift, don't you?- one has to prepare for an orderly departure, provide for all those left behind, so that life carries on here even as you line up at the pearly gates hoping you'll take the lift going up and not be pushed into the trap-door with the sulphur fumes. But extinction? When there's no life left on the planet, no Puranikoti, no inheritance or inheritors, nothing but a final puff of smoke to indicate that a beautiful blue planet once existed here? How does one "prepare" for that, Mr. Somanath?

I'm sure our rocket scientist will enlighten us on this point soon. But I'm not waiting. I've already decided on the details of my "preparation". I shall wait for that damned asteroid to appear on the horizon, give the wife a peck on the cheek, tell her to forget about the mangalsutra and the buffaloes, and retire to my study. There I shall pour myself a stiff single malt and tune in to the PM's latest Man ki Baat. The former shall put me in the proper frame of mind to say "Howdy!" to St. Peter, and the latter shall remind me that there are things worse than extinction. As my niece, Mitali Saran, has always maintained: a good sized asteroid is the solution to all our problems. Cheers, and Amen!

PRESENT IMPERFECT, FUTURE TENSE- AND TO HELL WITH THE PAST.

 Oceania, that dystopian country in Orwell's 1984 (to which India has started bearing a disturbing resemblance), has a Ministry Of Truth whose job is to function as a Ministry of Lies. Its function is to rewrite history so as to delete/revise any record inconvenient to the ruling regime of Big Brother, to edit/censor news to ensure it conforms to what the government wants, to make doubly sure that the public  gets to know only what the powerful junta decides it should know. It is perhaps the most important of all the Ministries, because it controls that human faculty which all dictators dread- the human mind. The rulers of Oceania have learnt well that axiomatic lesson: he who controls the present controls the past, and he who controls the past controls the future.

This dictum lies at the heart of the BJP's vision for its thousand year Reich (currently truncated to the year 2047). Except that the BJP has gone one better than Orwell- the task of erasing facts and validating untruths has not been centralised in just one Ministry but has been farmed out to multiple institutions, from Municipal Corporations to Parliament. The insidious operation is being conducted in the party's usual thorough manner, in incremental steps, after creating fertile ground (through a prostituted media and a terrified bureaucracy) in which to sow the seeds of fiction and falsity. For the party has a healthy distaste for history, and quite rightly too, considering that for most of its existence from the pre-Independence days to 1990 it has been just a footnote in the pages of India's history. That little omission rankles, and therefore the desperate efforts to rectify it in true Orwellian fashion.

The first steps were intended to erase the 300 odd years of Mughal heritage of the country-to begin with, by renaming roads and cities, then by demolishing Mughal architecture under the guise of removing "encroachments" (like the masjid in Delhi, stated to be an encroachment in a reserved forest, which was built 400 years before the forest was declared to be reserved!), and now with the full fledged assault on the Places of Worship Act under the benign watch of a nonchalant judiciary. And it's not just masjids and madrasas - both the Qutab Minar and the Taj Mahal are also alleged to be sitting atop temples. The next step will be the Uniform Civil Code.

Leading the charge on another front are our education regulators, ensuring that future generations do not learn anything that may threaten the ruling regime and its absurd narratives. And so under NEP (New Education policy) the syllabi removes all references to secularism, federalism and citizenship from the text books; the NCERT, not to be outdone, has deleted (from Class 12 texts) all references to demolition of the Ram Mandir, Advani's rath yatra and the 2002 Gujarat riots. The astounding explanation given by the NCERT chief on this vandalisation of history is that "we want to create positive citizens, not violent and depressed individuals." By that logic 3/4ths of all human history shall have to be expunged, in the interest of producing ignorant, uninformed morons as foot soldiers of a particular ideology, which probably is the intention in any case.

The new Parliament building is only the external evidence of how even our Parliamentary history is being recast and revised with the intention of making it an extension of the right wing architecture, shorn of its glorious past and traditions: the real, extirpative changes are taking place within its walls. All past heritage and conventions are being eroded one by one- consultations with the Opposition, consensus on election of presiding officers, full and free discussions on important legislations, unrestricted coverage of proceedings by the press and media, acceptance of urgent adjournment motions, reply by the Prime Minister to questions, nomination of Opposition party members to important Committees, reference of Bills to Consultative Committees, and so on. Instead, new traditions are being introduced unilaterally, such as suspending more than a hundred members at one go, disqualifying members with unholy haste and without a fair hearing, expunging speeches with gay abandon (as in the 14 expunctions recently to Rahul Gandhi's speech on the President's Address. The Prime Minister's unparliamentary language and vilification, of course, were allowed to stand).

This Prime Minister is desperate to change the character and nature of everything of historical note and to leave his own half-baked imprimatur on them instead, marking territory, as it were. And so the tragic and solemn Jalianwala Bagh has to be Disneyfied into a garish tourist attraction, Gandhi's Sabarmati Ashram has to be forcefully renovated and redesigned over the  protests of its care-takers and residents, the magnificent Rajpath and its environs have to be expropriated at a cost of Rs. 20000 crores just to show who is the Bossman, the ancient ambience and unique aura of Ayodhya and Kashi have to be "modernised" by demolishing hundreds of houses, shops and smaller temples so that the Great Builder can engrave his non-biological insignia there for all posterity to marvel at.

Work is going on on other fronts too- renaming of old welfare programmes to remove any historical connection with previous governments (19 of 23 UPA schemes have been renamed), redacting inconvenient official records (like the part of the CAG report that dealt with the financials of the Rafale deal), using sealed covers in courts to hide the truth from the public, ignoring earlier Prime Ministers in the documentation of ceremonial functions (like the ICHR omitting Nehru's name from the posters commemorating India's 75th year of independence). The BJP however has a problem with Nehru who has to be pulled down if the Supreme Leader has to occupy his place on the pedestal. But the problem is that Nehru also has to be kept in the public mind constantly so that he can be blamed  for all of this govt's failures, the list of which keeps growing! Love him or hate him, but the BJP can't ignore him.

There are three types of people: those who make history, those who learn from history, and those who are afraid of history and want to erase it. This last type are tormented by insecurity and fear, and can never achieve greatness. One is reminded of this little anecdote about Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth I. It was said that perhaps there was something more than just the sovereign-subject equation in their relationship. The former had to be very careful and circumspect, however, in expressing or conveying his feelings about this in the age of sudden decapitations by the Virgin Queen. The two used to take regular evening walks in the royal arbor. One day the Queen found written on a wall of the arbor the following words: 

"Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall."

The Queen wrote below it:

"If you fear to fall, then do not climb at all."

Indeed, fear and self-doubt are not the right stimulants for creating history.  

  

SPECTACULAR HIGH ALTITUDE PASSES OF HIMACHAL- PIN PARBAT.

 

             SPECTACULAR HIGH ALTITUDE PASSES OF HIMACHAL [ I ]

                                            PIN  PARBAT

 

The massive Pir Panjal range of the Greater Himalaya  separates the districts of Kullu and Lahaul-Spiti in Himachal Pradesh. There are a number of rugged passes along this range which the hardy tribals have used since time immemorial- Kugti, Chobia, Kalicho and Rohtang served the residents of Lahaul, while Hamta and Pin Parbat were used by the people of Spiti. Inevitably, with the expansion of the road  network and improved connectivity, these passes now witness the passage of only the resilient “gaddis” or the adventurous trekker.

                          

                      [ Pin Parbat Pass. Photo by Sanjeeva Pandey ]     

At 5319 meters  Pin Parbat straddles the watershed of Kullu and Spiti: the north is drained by the mysterious Pin river, and the south by the Parbati. Pin Parbat also separates two distinct eco zones: the Kullu side is blessed with lush green temperate vegetation while the northern Spiti side is a cold desert devoid of any vegetation, a frozen canvas of sculpted rocks and lonely peaks bathed in the most colourful hues imaginable. The pass can be approached from both sides but the route from the Parbati valley on the Kullu side is the more preferred option.

                   [ The infant Parbati exiting Mantalai lake. Photo by author ]

The  launch point for the ascent to the pass is the glacial Mantalai lake (14000 feet), the source of the Parbati river and a three days’ trek from the road head at Pulga in the Parbati valley. There is no human habitation after Khir Ganga, a day's trek from Pulga, and the only peoples you can expect to meet thereafter are the itinerant, nomadic and transhumant Gujjars or Gaddis with all their worldly assets literally on the hoof, guarded by that matchless breed of dogs – the eponymous gaddi or Himalayan Sheep Dog.  It is possible to reach the pass from Mantalai in one day’s hard trekking and climbing, but this is not adviseable because it involves a climb of 4000 feet and then a descent of another 3000 feet to the camp-site on the other side, all over rocks, ice and crevasses. Any delay and one can get stranded in dangerous no man’s land in the darkness. It is best, therefore, to camp at the foot of the pass after leaving Mantalai and push up to the pass the next day.

                  [ On the saddle of Pin Parbat pass. Author is fourth from the right.]                                 

The track from the lake heads  east along a narrow, detritus filled valley overhung with glaciers on both sides which feed the lake itself. It ends about three kilometres later at an awe-inspiring feature: a sheer wall of loose rock and moraine, rising straight up 1000 feet at an impossible angle of 70 degrees. It’s difficult to get a firm footing on this slippery slope and one has to inch up one step at a time, keeping a lookout for falling boulders.  It takes two hours to reach the top: at 15000 feet the view is stupendous- a 270 degree sweep from the west to the north, an unending array of glaciers, peaks and shimmering streams, all feeding the forbidding lake which we had just left behind.

                [ The massive snout of a glacier on the way to the Pass. Photo by author ]

The track continues eastwards from the saddle, along a narrow, scree covered valley floor, through which flows another small stream originating from the glacier atop Pin Parbat itself. We followed this rivulet for a couple of kilometres and then pitched camp for the night- Base camp I.

The next day dawned bright and crisp as only the mountains can offer. We broke camp at 7.00AM, and after a kilometre came to a huge rockfall about 50 meters high which would extend all the way to the pass. The going is tough, but soon relieved by the snout of a massive glacier on the right, at least 150 feet high. It was an awe-inspiring feature as we moved along its foot: it had ice caves and overhangs from which little ribbons of snow melt emerged in hundreds of cascades, all merging into the little stream we were following. Soon we were above the glacier and could now see its huge expanse from the top. It stretched away as far as the eye could see to the south, and it was fractured with hundreds of crevasses. I sometimes wonder if this immense glacier is still there, or if it too has succumbed to the effects of global warming.

                        [ The colours of Pin valley. Pin river is in the middle ground.

                           Photo by author]

                  

After another kilometre or so, the top of the rockfall is achieved, and the Pin Parbat pass itself  now rises on the ridge-line, completely encased in a thick mantle of ice. This ice crust is about 10 feet thick at the edge. We clambered over it; the prospect before us was absolutely mesmerising: wave upon wave of ice dunes, hillocks and shallow valleys of snow and ice on the massive glacier, gently ascending to the pass itself. There is no track and the surface is fractured with innumerable crevasses. The snowfall of the previous night had covered these fissures with a light mantle of snow, obscuring them from the careless trekker and presenting an additional danger.  Carefully roped up, we trudged  through the vast ice field and after about an hour crested the top of the glacier. This is indeed glacier land- all around us were these massive rivers of ice and we counted at least 12 of them. We were now standing on the exact watershed line between Kullu and Spiti, looking down into the little known Pin Valley, taking its name from one of the streams originating from the pass- the Pin river. Base camp II was a further 1000 exhausting meters below.  From Base camp II, which is on the banks of the infant Pin it is another two days’ trek to the little village of Mudh. This is  the Pin Valley National Park, the domain of the snow leopard, Spiti wolf, ibex and ghoral.

THE SLAPSTICK QUANDARY

 The last fortnight has not been a good one for Himachal's politicians. The Chief Minister, Mr. Sukhu, lived up to the promise he had shown as a child and lost all four Lok Sabha seats to the BJP. The late Chief Minister Raja Virbhadra's son, Vikramaditya Singh, will never be able to show his face in royal circles again, having lost miserably to a far-from-common commoner in the Mandi seat. Mr. Anurag Thakur of the BJP has been divested of his central Ministership. There is some speculation that the always smiling Mr. JP Nadda may have had something to do with it: he first moth- balled the father, and now the son. That now leaves only the Holy Ghost, the banarsi pan(jandrum), he of the Immaculate Conception, to deal with. As someone sang, to everything there is a time...And finally, the Himachal-ki-beti Kangana Ranaut was slapped in the kisser by a lady constable of the CISF (Central Industrial Slapping Force). (This, of course, solves the mystery of the recent deployment of the CISF for Parliament's security- perhaps the stigmata on Ms Ranaut's flaming cheek is a dress rehearsal of what Opposition MPs can expect from the CISF chappies in Parliament. Of course, Ms Ranaut herself is now safe- a lawyer friend tells me that slapping her again would amount to res judicata or double jeopardy, and would therefore not be allowed by My Lords if they ever return from their vacations. 

Coming back to the slapping, however; I feel a disclaimer is in order here: I abhor violence and do not condone it, except when it is inflicted on people I don't like. I do not dislike Ms Ranaut- how can the male of any species except perhaps the streptococcus?- but I do disapprove of many of her utterances and the ideas she stands for. She is a loudmouth and a motormouth whose natural instinct is to insult and abuse, like she did all those women at the farmers' protest. The CISF constable, Kulwinder Kaur, is the daughter of one of these women, and belongs to a proud community which does not believe in turning the other cheek- as Ms Ranaut's own flaming cheeks bear testimony to. To put it bluntly: Ms. Ranaut was asking for it and got what was due to her. If you want to lie down with dogs, expect to be bitten by a few ticks and fleas.

But she has her defenders: how can a person in uniform slap a woman?, they shout from their majoritarian ramparts. Really? What have persons in uniform not done to their country-men under the orders of this regime to which the lady from Mandi owes her allegiance? Have they not dragged women wrestlers (champions all) on the roads of Delhi and roughed them up while in uniform? Have they not burnt at midnight (without the consent of her parents) the corpse of a young Dalit girl, raped and killed by upper cast men, while in uniform? Have they not barged into the hostels and libraries of Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Milia and mercilessly beaten students of both sexes without any reason, while in uniform? Have they not stood by and watched, for almost a year now, the atrocities being committed on the women of Manipur, while in uniform? Did not a railway policeman, while in uniform,  walk through a train coach, shooting members of a particular community with impunity? Please, all ye bhakts of various shades of saffron, spare us this drivel about uniforms. In the India of today a uniform is not a symbol of lawful forbearance, as it should be, it is a license for excess, accompanied by the Supreme Leaders's guarantee of complete immunity from the law. So what type of clothes Kulwinder Kaur was wearing when she planted the Congress symbol on Ms Ranaut's cheek is quite beside the point.

Welcome to public life, Ms Ranaut, and to the world of slippers, slaps and ink- ask Mr. Kejriwal, who has been slapped more times in public than by his mother as a child. Welcome also to the reality that sooner or later your past will catch up with you. One cannot make a career of foul mouthing individuals, abusing communities, vilifying particular religions, indulging in violence of the ideological and verbal kind, and not expect a pushback. This slapstick episode in which Kangana Ranaut plays the lead role has many subtle nuances, and all those who condemn Kulvinder Kaur without acknowledging these nuances are just being hypocritical and politically correct. Adopting a politically correct stance is the laziest response to a controversial situation. And, as Harry Truman so correctly remarked, political correctness is nothing but the deluded belief that it is possible to pick up a piece of shit by the clean end. Good luck, folks, in finding the right end!

DELHI, HANG YOUR HEAD IN SHAME

 My first posting as Deputy Commissioner was in 1980, to a district called Una. Una sits uncomfortably on the border with Punjab, and was apportioned to Himachal under the Punjab Reorganisation Act in the 70's. Ever since then Himachal has been trying to return it to Punjab, without any success ! The reason?- the good citizens of Una just have to be the most argumentative, cantankerous and litigious bunch in the Himalayas. In fact, I was told of a legend there that when Guru Nanak Dev visited Una during the course of his travels, he spent a night there trying to preach to the people. It was apparently in vain because they wouldn't listen to him, kept arguing with him on every issue and generally gave his teachings short shrift. Next morning, before leaving, he conferred his benediction on them by praying to God that they should not be disturbed in their present place of habitation, that they should prosper there, and be spared the wanderings that was the lot of people in those times.

The Guru moved on to Anandpur Sahib where he was treated with utmost respect, his every word venerated and his teachings enshrined in the hearts of the good people of Ropar. He blessed the villagers next morning by saying that they should travel all over India and not remain settled only at one place. His followers, in some surprise, asked him why the difference in blessings for Una and Anandpur Sahib -asking the latter to endure the hardship of dispersing all over the country while wishing for the comfort of the former by asking them to remain settled at one place? It is said that the Guru replied (no doubt with a twinkle in his eye!) that the people of Anandpur Sahib were the true disciples for his message of love and fraternity and should therefore spread this message throughout the country; conversely, the people of Una represented every value which he, the Guru, abhorred and preached against, and it was better if such people remained confined and isolated at one place and not spread their negativity !

I am reminded of this enlightening anecdote post the election results in Delhi where the BJP won 7 out of 7 Parliamentary seats. Because Delhi is no different from Una and its citizens deserve a similar "blessing". While the ordinary citizens of India were fighting to regain their democratic heritage from a despotic regime, these pampered elite of Golf Links, Punjabi Bagh, the RWAs of Dwarka and the coddled bureaucrats of Motinagar have been content to live in their bubble of privileges, windfall real estate earnings and vacations in Bali. They have once again displayed their total disconnect from the real Bharat, even as they plunder its resources to extract a disproportionate share of the nation's energy, water and other resources, and destroy its green cover, rivers and environment. The callousness they had last displayed when booting out millions of migrants during the Covid lockdown has once again been reflected in their total apathy and lack of concern at the endless suffering inflicted by this BJP regime on the average citizen for the last ten years. By giving all seven seats to the same party they have endorsed another five years of authoritarianism. It is rural India, not the effete, self-serving urbanite of Delhi (and Bangalore), which has put a brake on this.

According to the available figures of Delhi, about 50 lakh voters preferred the BJP, as against 38 lakhs for the INDIA alliance. These same people had come out in their tens of thousands and flooded the India Gate and Boat Club grounds in 2012 to protest corruption and lack of safety for women in the UPA govt. But now they are unconcerned about the same, and even more disturbing, issues. It would appear they have been lobotomised in this last decade by the toxic and heady mix of hate, Islamophobia and crass materialism to the point where they attach no value to all that was once the essence of our great country: tolerance, pluralism, citizens' basic rights, concern for Gandhi's Daridranarayan, the freedom to debate, the jewel of a democracy with all its flaws.

And they certainly cannot plead ignorance, for the worst atrocities and constitutional violations have occurred right under their noses, in Delhi itself: the engineered riots of 2022, the brutal beating up of JNU and Jamia Islamia students by police, Shahin Bagh and the dictum of "Goli maaro saalon ko", the barbaric treatment of protesting female wrestlers, the vandalisation of Delhi's history, architectural heritage and natural environment by grotesquely bizarre projects like the Central Vista and Bharat Mandapam extravaganzas, the usurpation of common public places under the guise of security.

These same citizens have twice voted in the AAP in the last two Assembly elections by a massive 90% mandate, and had rejected the BJP. So where is the outrage that the same BJP, under a puppet, unelected Regent has not allowed the elected state government to function for the last ten years? Are they not angry that their mandate is being usurped and systematically subverted by an arrogant Ozymandias in  Lok Kalyan Marg? That their elected Chief Minister and other Ministers have been arrested and detained without any apparent evidence or trial for months? That Delhi, the capital of the largest democracy in the world, has been reduced to the status of a panchayat in which a Chief minister has fewer powers than a sarpanch? One would expect that, even if Delhi-ites are too self centered to bother about national issues, they would at least be worried about the deplorable goings-on in their own city. Can they not see that every welfare or development programme of the AAP govt. relating to education, health, transport, piped water for slum colonies, door step ration delivery, subsistence elctricity supply- has been sabotaged by the same unelected and unaccountable Regent simply to wreak political vengeance for his party's political losses? What kind of stupidity permits them to approve of this venal politics in their own city? Even a dog does not defecate in his own backyard.

Even as distant and one-horse towns like Ayodhya and Sabarkanta and Banswara have shown by their voting how precious the idea and the Constitution of India is to them, the vast majority of Delhi's residents have demonstrated that they may be literate but they are certainly not educated. By their callous indifference to the plight of India's minorities and the hundreds of millions rotting at the bottom of the media-built shining pyramid, they have revealed all that is wrong with India's elites; they have also demonstrated the validity of activist Harsh Mander's words in his 2015 book LOOKING AWAY : "A just and caring state can only be located ultimately in a just and caring society.....India will not change until we- the middle classes- also change." They should hang their heads in shame for having let down a great nation, its freedom fighters and the visionary statesmen who created this country out of 500 territorial fragments and wrested them from the debilitating embrace of colonialism. To its eternal shame, Delhi has set the clock back by many years, and proved right the prescient words of George Orwell: "A people that elect corrupt politicians, impostors, thieves and traitors are not victims....but accomplices." 

I have little doubt what the great Guru, were he around today, would have advised them to do.

LAST RIGHTS

 

LAST RIGHTS

    Notwithstanding the hundreds of babies who die every year in hospitals of the Delhi, Gorakhpur and Farrukhabad variety, rates of both infant and maternal mortality have been consistently declining. One of the main reasons for this happy development is the govt's push for Institutional Deliveries as against the age-old practice of home deliveries, presided over by midwives. The former, by ensuring better hygiene and medical care, has led to improved survival rates for both, mother and child. Strangely, however, the opposite appears to be happening for older people! More people are nowadays dying in hospitals than at home, at least in urban areas. "Institutional deaths" anecdotally outnumber "home deaths". (Try to recollect how many people you know who have died at home in the last few years- I can  think of only one). There are many reasons for this but we will not go into them as that is not the subject of this piece. But what it has done is left me with a insurmountable problem and much to worry about (apart from the fact that I have to file my Income Tax Return soon!)

    At a sprightly 73 I am uncomfortably conscious of the fact that I have crossed the average life expectancy age in India by a margin better than the NDA's majority, and may not live to see either Rahul Gandhi or Arvind Kejriwal become Prime Minister of India. As things stand today that may require the said average to go up to about 90 or perhaps require even a second rebirth. But you can't fight with averages, and since I am  about as average a Joe as any you'll come across in a week of Sundays, its time for me to start thinking about the grand exit and the family pension for the long suffering wife. And that's where the problem arises.

  You see, I don't want to be told Bon Voyage or Happy Landing (or whatever they say in Sanskrit these days) in a hospital, attached to more pipes and tubes than a vat in a distillery, with a ventilator pumping air into me as if I was an old, retreaded tyre with a dozen punctures. It is my fervent wish to board Yamdoot's busy shuttle service (the last mile connectivity) from my home, surrounded by the few family and friends whom I have not yet managed to annoy, gazing wistfully at the " Aam Aadmi" cap I had promised to wear when Mr. Kejriwal became Prime Minister. Since that doesn't appear likely anytime soon, I may as well not hold my breath, if you see what I mean. I have written all this in my living will for my sons to read and carry out. However, since they are products of Bishop Cotton School Shimla, I can't depend on their ability to decipher words with more than two syllables, hence this public statement.

    But I digress, as usual, from the main point, which is this: Who will issue my Death Certificate if I cop it at home? I am told that only a govt. doctor or a hospital can issue a DC. Now, I can hardly hope that a sarkari doctor will deign to come to my house in Puranikoti village when given the good news of my departure, considering that they rarely go to even their places of posting! Please press the Save button on this problem, dear reader, while I move on to the next one.

    The second, even bigger problem for me is this: I am a non-practicing Hindu (i.e. not a gau rakshak or a bhakt) but do not wish to be cremated at Benaras or Haridwar, for the simple reason that I do not want half of my torso floating around in  polka dot Jockeys till I land up at the Ganga barrage in Kanpur- though, I must confess, since I belong to Kanpur this will be my final "ghar wapasi" of sorts. There is also that little problem of getting caught in a ten kilometre traffic jam on the way to Haridwar, or of bumping into a sulking Mr. Modi in Benaras and being mistaken for a potential NDA ally.

    There are other reasons too for avoiding the barbeque and being toasted by my colleagues and neighbours. I don't wish to be converted to CO2 or methane or whatever toxic gas ex-bureaucrats are composed of, and burn another hole in the ozone layer. I'd much rather become top soil and end up as a begonia or a daisy and, if my luck holds out, perhaps be plucked by a pretty young girl some day! My desire, therefore, is to be buried- and that too on my own land in Puranikoti village, and not in a cemetery which is probably an encroachment on forest land. (Having served for almost four years in the Forest department, I certainly cannot become a party to this, you will agree). It took me two years of bending and genuflecting to obtain permission from the govt. to buy this land, and another three years of scraping and begging to build the house on it, so I don't intend giving it up so easily. I fully intend to hang around there- as a daisy, if you will but more likely as a cactus shrub- to further ensure that the Deputy Commissioner Shimla does not resume the land on the grounds that , since I don't have an Aadhar number, I never existed officially. But the problem of that damn Death Certificate remains, now worse confounded. You see, one also needs a certificate from a crematorium or burial ground authority that the body has been properly disposed off ! Without this the police are likely to dig me out again, register an FIR against me and then I'll become case property. And we all know what happens to case property in police stations- it gets buggered-sorry, burgled!

    Maybe I should just convert to Jainism or Buddhism, climb into that hole in the ground I had dug up for a rainwater harvesting tank, and take "samadhi". Or, better still, I can claim that my birth was not biological and that therefore no Death Certificate is needed. After all, we do have a precedent for this at 7, Jan Kalyan Marg, New Delhi, and we all know that obsession is nine tenths of the law, don't we? That should solve all my problems. Or maybe I should just listen to the Beatles and Let It Be. But there's reason to worry here too: what if my sons decide to be like the chap who, having just lost his wife and being asked whether they should bury, cremate or embalm her, shouted: " Don't take any chances- do all three!" That would be too much of a good thing.